--ha! you don't mean
_that_, do you?"

"My arm has been dressed," said Mr. Linden quietly.

"Never trust a woman!" said the doctor wheeling round. "I thought she
had got enough of that yesterday. Did she do it well?"

"Excellently well."

"Your face says so as well as your tongue," said the doctor, with an
odd manner of despair. "I have lost--not my occupation, for I never had
any!--but I have lost my power over you; and she has got it!--I don't
know how to whistle, or I suppose I could take comfort in that."

Mr. Linden did not whistle, nor laugh, nor speak,--all that could be
said of him was that he lay there very quiet, with his eyes open,
looking remarkably well.

"Let a woman alone for doing what she has a mind to!" the doctor went
on, in his usual manner now, putting on his gloves. "I tell you what,
Linden--they're the hardest creatures to manage there are;--boys are
nothing to them! Well, good morning!"

"Good morning,"--said Mr. Linden. "I hope you will be able to manage
the wind."

The Dr. Harrison who had been up stairs was not at all the Dr. Harrison
that met Faith in the hall and escorted her to the carriage. Grave,
gentle, graceful, but especially grave, for some reason or other, he
was; and not the less for that agreeable, she thought. Faith was in a
sober mood herself; for she was about an undertaking she did not much
like; and which Mr. Linden had liked even less. Faith pondered, as they
drove swiftly along, what the particular objections had been which he
had not chosen to tell her; and now and then thought a little uneasily
of the coming interview with the doctor's patient, with Dr. Harrison
himself for auditor and spectator. She did not like it; but she had
honestly done what she thought right, and Mr. Linden had said _she_ was
not wrong. And she was bound on the expedition, which she could not get
rid of; so though these considerations did float over and over her mind
they did not shake what was nevertheless a very happy peacefulness.
Faith was glad the doctor was pretty well engaged with his horses; and
let her own musings run upon the pleasant things of the morning, and of
yesterday, with glances at the delightful new world of work and
knowledge into which she had entered, or was entering; and happy
resting down on the foundation for all joy so lately known to her.
Whirled along on smooth going wheels, in that bright brisk day, little
interrupted with talk, these thoughts and meditations